"State lawmakers skip drama, cut budget by millions"

Andrew Garber (Seattle Times):

Departing Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, voted against the reductions, arguing lawmakers should look to eliminate certain tax loopholes and giveaways to raise more money. Oemig lost to a Republican in the November election.

"Today, what this bill does, it's going to cut welfare for kids, for families," he said during the debate. "It's going to cut school funding. And it's not asking anyone else to sacrifice. That's just not right."
(SNIP)
"This is probably the easiest of all the decisions we're going to have to make as we move into January," said Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, the ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Zarelli voted for the cuts.

That's what has health-care, social-service and education advocates worried.

"There's a real fear out there that this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for a coalition of health-care and social-service advocates.

"The Legislature needs to take a balanced approach to this unprecedented situation," he said. "What I'm suggesting is that they also take a look at reforming tax exemptions and closing some of these worst tax exemptions." MORE...

SNL on Obama: "Republican leaders decided to hold us hostage, for about three days--- bound, gagged and blindfolded. " (with video)

NBC-SNL, video (03:31).
Howie P.S.: Eric Zorn (Chicago Tribune, op-ed) explains "Why the left is right to be cross with Obama":

But where I, for one, grew disillusioned was when the White House didn't respond vigorously at the right's demonization of ObamaCare after it passed, even though nearly all of the new law's provisions separately polled well. This torpid failure of message and purpose contributed to the pasting that Democrats took in November.

On the issue of extending the Bush-era tax cuts, poll after poll showed strong support for Obama's idea of not extending them on income above $250,000 a year for couples. High-earners have had a comparatively good decade and they can afford the extra nick to help the nation bring down the deficit.

What a great political issue! Pass an extension of tax relief for roughly 98 percent of earners, then stand back and watch the citizenry attack Republicans with metaphorical torches and pitchforks when they filibuster all tax relief until their rich pals get in on it too. MORE...

Paul Krugman is troubled by "Orwellian Centrism":

The debate over the public option wasn’t what slowed the legislation. What did it was the many months Obama waited while Max Baucus tried to get bipartisan support, only to see the Republicans keep moving the goalposts; only when the White House finally concluded that Republican “moderates” weren’t negotiating in good faith did the thing finally get moving.

So look at how the Village constructs its mythology. The real story, of pretend moderates stalling action by pretending to be persuadable, has been rewritten as a story of how those DF hippies got in the way, until the centrists saved the day.

The worst of it is that I suspect Obama’s memory has gone down the same hole. MORE...

"Cenk Uyger and Richard Wolfe discuss the Non-Fight in Obama" (video)

The Young Turks, video (12:26).

Robert Reich on Barack, Bill and The Tax Cuts

Robert Reich:

If the Democratic Party has stood for anything over the years it is to maintain and restore upward mobility for the majority of working Americans, ensure that the playing field isn't tilted in the direction of the privileged, and limit the power of the richest among us to entrench themselves and their heirs into a semi-permanent plutocracy.

Continuing the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, including a sharp cut in the estate tax, violates these core principles. Doing so in the midst of an economic emergency that demands bold measures to rescue America's vast middle and working class adds further insult. For President Obama and former President Clinton to tell America there's "no other choice" or that "this is the best we can do" -- when Democrats remain putatively in control of the House, Senate, and the presidency -- is misleading.

I admire Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. I advised the former and worked for the latter. They are good men. But they have either been outwitted by the privileged and powerful of America, or seduced by those on Wall Street and the executive suites of America into believing that the Republican nostrums are necessary, or succumbed Democratic advisors who think in terms of small-bore tactics rather than large and principled strategies. MORE...

"Obama still needs his liberal base"

Perry Bacon, Jr. (WaPo):

Despite President Obama's blasts against liberal activists in his party this week, he is likely to start wooing them again. Why? Because he needs them.

As my colleague Chris Cillizza wrote earlier this week, the people railing on television against Obama's deal with Republicans on tax cuts aren't in the majority even among Democrats: 80 percent of self-identified liberals approve of the president's performance. A primary challenge of Obama would be virtually assured of failure; he is not only very popular with Democrats, but even more so with African Americans (about 90 percent approval), who comprise half of the Democratic vote in some states.

But the "professional left," the unflattering name the White House has given its liberal critics, matters to the future of Obama's presidency. Here are three reasons why: MORE...

"House Dems Prepare Tax Cut Counter-Offer" (video)

MSNBC-Maddow Show, video (14:32).

Howie P.S.: Jan Schakowsky joins Rachel Maddow.

Maddow: "Deal or No Deal?" (with video)

MSNBC-The Maddow Blog, with video (15:07):

The Obama administration is selling the tax deal as hard as it can -- sending out Vice President Biden with the e-mail blast and economic adviser Austan Goolsbee with the whiteboard and the talk on our show last night.

Economist Paul Krugman says he has spent the week trying to make some kind of peace with the idea of giving Republicans the tax breaks they want for the wealthy in exchange for unemployment insurance and tax breaks for the rest of us. Krugman sounds like he's living in our neighborhood, though, in that he doesn't like being called out by President Obama as an overly demanding purist and that he thinks the president has mostly just postponed the real debate. Krugman writes in the NYT:

[C]oncerns about the tax deal reflect realism, not purism: Mr. Obama is setting up another hostage situation a year down the road. And given that fact, the last thing we need is the kind of self-indulgent behavior he showed by lashing out at progressives who he feels aren't giving him enough credit.

In Krugman's book, the president's display of anger amounts to a show of weakness -- the last thing he needs just now.

Howie P.S.: More push-back from The Left, professional and otherwise:

An Open Letter to the Left Establishment---The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.

We are writing to you because, as well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize. MORE...

And Michael Tomasky writes about "The significance of Bernie Sanders' filibuster---"Bernie Sanders' filibuster won't sink Obama's tax cuts deal, but it may help stiffen Democrats' resolve on tax justice down the line." David Horsey goes for the, uh, "bottom line"---

Bernie is still TALKIN' (streaming video)

Watch a live stream of the senator's speech.

John Nichols: "So why did the White House compromise?"

John Nichols:

It was partly the familiar logic of the filibuster. The forty-two senators really can, under current rules, shut down the chamber and stall a vote on the Dream Act or "don't ask, don't tell." But part of it was that the final deal, despite White House protestations, was likely not far from what Obama wanted. It's essentially what former OMB director Peter Orszag advocated in his first New York Times column, penned just a few weeks after leaving the administration.

My sense is that the White House economic and political team is starting to panic as they recognize the stubborn persistence of unemployment. They know the economy needs more stimulus, and that Republicans are loath to allow them to deliver it. Through this deal they were able to secure some stimulative tax cuts, like the payroll tax reduction. Briefing liberal writers, the White House sold the plan as stimulus 2.0. And even if tax cuts for the rich aren't stimulative, it's money into the economy. At this point, the White House will take what it can get.

It's the standard bribery model of legislating that has come to characterize Washington in the era of oligarchy: if you want to put food on the table of the unemployed, you must lavishly wine and dine the CEOs and bankers who laid them off. Obama didn't create this system, but he is making it stronger before our very eyes. MORE...

Bernie Sanders: "Watch a live stream of the senator's speech."

Sanders.senate.gov with streaming video:

Saying he was prepared to speak "as long as possible" against a tax deal between the White House and congressional Republicans, Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor to make the case against deepening the deficit and widening the income gap in America by extending Bush-era tax breaks for the very wealthy. "I think we can do better, and I am here today to take a strong stand against this bill, and I intend to tell my colleagues and the nation exactly why I am in opposition to this bill. You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you it call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech. I'm not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle. I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides."

Watch a live stream of the senator's speech.

"Obama Speaks Ill of His Allies"

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

E. J. Dionne, Jr.:

In the short term, Obama did get more than most liberals expected. It is good news that he’s focused on the need to give the economy another jolt, even if some of the measures the accord includes are not very stimulative.

The rest of the package delivers tangible benefits to the unemployed and to lower- and middle-income taxpayers. For roughly $100 billion to the rich, Obama got $197 billion in benefits he sought for the non-rich, $146 billion in business tax cuts to push job creation, plus an extension of the $280 billion middle-class tax cut. Many Democrats insist the Republicans would have eventually given in on relief for the middle class; the administration is not so sure.

These substantial concessions have led many liberal policy leaders—among them, Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress and Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute—to support the deal, partly on the theory that any next deal would be worse. Other liberals would go along if the estate tax cut could be made less munificent.

And at least these negotiations have had the benefit of proving conclusively that the only people for whom conservative Republicans will go to the mat are the country’s best-off citizens—and deficits be damned.

But in the long run, is Obama capable of winning the future battles with the Republicans that this temporary agreement sets up? By expanding the deficit, it will make it easier for the Republicans to push sharp cuts in all manner of domestic programs, including Medicare and Social Security. This accord will not stop Republicans from expounding regularly on “the Obama deficit,” or from trying to box him in again on the tax cuts.

One House Democrat, who because he respects Obama asked not to be named, offered an unexpected case for the package that tells the president how much ground he has to make up with those who were once his most fervent supporters.

“If I thought they were ready to go 12 rounds on this next year, I’d kill it in a heartbeat,” he said of the administration. “But if they’re going to keep leaving the ring after the first punch, this is the best alternative we’ve got to keep this recovery going and helping those who are hurting the most.” There was no sanctimony or purism here, just a sober and melancholy realism. MORE...

Howie P.S.: Paul Krugman:makes many of the same arguments today. Joan McCarter's post, "The Obama/Republican tax deal in picture form," (see image above) agrees. Digby complains

Democrats are always in the position of having to choose between some specific thing that will alleviate some suffering (however temporarily) in exchange for some heinous Galtian thievery and they end up taking the short term relief because they believe they have the responsibility to help people in the best way they can. Unfortunately, when dealing with nihilists, you end up creating more and more circumstances where such deals with the devil are necessary. MORE...

More disaffection: "Obama's tax-cut deal upsets many major donors" (LA Times). Paul Krugman: says "there are real reasons to worry here." Julian Zelizer writes on The War Room (Salon): "Obama is dealing away FDR's legacy." AND Steven D's post on Booman Tribune, "GOP Good Will is Obama's Strategy?" uses the graphic above and echoes many of the same points. Has Obama finally united the lefties?

Krugman: "Let’s Not Make a Deal"

Paul Krugman:

But while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing, there are worse things. And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils. MORE...

Cenk Uygur: "The Hidden Cost of Capitulation"

Cenk Uygur:

The president claims he will fight hard against these same tax cuts two years from now. It's hard to stop laughing long enough to make a point against that, but I will try. If you are sending out your people to talk up polls about how right the Republicans were on the tax cuts for the rich now, how are you going to send out the same people to talk about how wrong they were - and how wrong you were - two years from now?

These are the things that make me wonder if President Obama has a firm grasp on basic political fundamentals. Yesterday he said that the political reality is that he just didn't have the votes in the Senate (by far his favorite excuse). He even said "I can't win" in the Senate. That's a damning reversal for a man who ran on "Yes we can."

But more importantly, he doesn't seem to understand Politics 101. You don't just count the votes based on how the other side says they're going to vote. From time to time, you call their bluff. Which means you go to the home states of swing senators like Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe in Maine and you campaign on this winning issue there until you make them feel the political pain. Then you put them to a decision -- do you want to risk your career voting against me on this issue where I have huge popular support or do you want to vote with me? Then you take the vote and they will bend. If he doesn't understand that, boy did we elect the wrong guy.

Of course, the alternative is that he does understand that but doesn't ever have the stomach for a real fight. Or even worse yet, secretly likes this deal and will always find an excuse to get more tax cuts and sweet deals for the rich and powerful. In which case, boy did we elect the wrong guy. MORE...

TPMDC: On Tax Cut Deal, "the fix is in."

Brian Beutler (TPMDC):

Democrats' unease with President Obama's tax cut compromise waned slightly yesterday -- particularly in the Senate, after members were briefed about the economic upsides to getting this package passed before the end of the year. But even as the legislation was being drafted -- in preparation for a Senate floor debate that could begin today -- Dems were hoping the framework could be tweaked a bit -- particularly the estate tax provision, which even sympathetic members regard as too-friendly to the children of the über-rich.

That's not going to happen. MORE...

Digby: "Triangulating In The New Millenium"

Digby:

I should add that I also don't buy that Obama isn't drawn to centrist "New Democrat" solutions on the merits. His health care plan was very much a New Dem proposal, particularly since he put no muscle behind the one non-New Dem element in the program and helped the conservatives (serving as proxy for the GOP) in his own party use it to triangulate against the base in the final legislation. His stimulus program was half tax cuts. His economic advisors are mostly centrists and he has seemed to place a huge amount of faith in business to take the lead in fixing the economy. He may think he's "a pragmatic, non-ideological" politician but what he is in practice is a centrist. And the center is not where it used to be.

And that's why liberals and progressives are so frustrated. It's not just that they object to centrism on an ideological basis, which they do. It's that in this age of GOP political terrorism, centrists are effectively allies of the right wing. They foolishly thought that in a time of major economic crisis, discredited centrist and conservative ideology, a large congressional majority and a Democrat in the White House you might see just a little bit more of a push for real liberal policies. And unlike the "pragmatic" activist base of the 1990s which was sort of watching from the sidelines to see if this New Democrat thing might work and give us liberal solutions without the "baggage" of government, today's activist base has no such illusions. MORE...

Obama and The Tax Cuts (with video)

"Liberal Group Ad Recalls When Obama Said Bush Tax Cuts Offended His Conscience" (Sam Stein-HuffPo, with video (00:30):

Even as it gets members of its party in line on the Hill, the Obama White House continues to take veritable punches from some of its most vocal critics over the tax cut deal it cut with Republicans.

On Thursday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee -- perhaps the biggest irritant this administration has -- put out the second straight ad accusing the president of capitulating on tax cuts for the wealthy.

Like the last one, the spot uses Obama's own campaign rhetoric (lofty even by 2008 standards) against him, with footage of the then-candidate proclaiming that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- as part of a larger economic philosophy -- "offend[ed]" his "conscience." MORE...

"How the Republicans fleeced President Obama in tax-cut poker" (Jacob Weisberg-SLATE):

During his days as an Illinois state legislator, Barack Obama was a regular poker player. Based on recent evidence, I suspect he wasn't a very good one. In trying to negotiate a tax deal, he has made a series of amateur mistakes. MORE...

"Don't primary Obama, change Congress" (Joan Walsh), with video (07:33):

The itch to change candidates reflects the left's inability to buckle down to long-term political organizing.---I'm disappointed in President Obama's tax-cut deal, as I've already explained. I'm glad the administration is framing it as a "stimulus bill" now -- let's hope tough progressive Democrats make it better, since there's little chance that it won't pass. But I think pondering a primary challenge to Obama is suicidal, and reflects a certain fecklessness on the left. First of all, Obama was a great gift to lefty Democrats in 2008, making them believe that a few years of online organizing and railing against George W. Bush had produced a true progressive hero and a coalition for dramatic change, which simply wasn't true. Too many anointed him the true candidate of the left too quickly and attacked Hillary Clinton -- and anyone who defended her -- as moderate sellouts, or even racists, even though Clinton was taking the more liberal line on healthcare reform, Social Security and the economy generally. I don't want to fight that old fight again; I really do understand that many progressives were tired of Clintonian centrism, which is what they thought they'd get under the wife of the former president, and thought it was worth taking a chance on the inspiring African-American from Chicago who had, significantly, opposed the Iraq war, unlike his leading Democratic rivals.

Still, the rush to proclaim Obama the one, true progressive in 2008 was foolish, and I'd suggest that those who wound up disappointed in Obama think more about what they can learn from that race, rather than plotting to bring him down in 2012. MORE...

Howie P.S.: The most troubling aspect of "The Deal" is the financial hole it digs for our federal government. It will severely impact other programs, including Social Security and will give fuel to Republican noise about "deficits" when they oppose domestic spending. Of course, they are mostly silent when it comes to our massive military expenditures.

Dem Rep. Michael Capuano: "I 'May Or May Not' Support Obama Reelection" (with video)

HuffPo with video from FAUX News 05:13):

Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) expressed what now seems to be widespread concern over the president's leadership and bargaining skills Tuesday in the wake of a much-maligned tax cuts deal that allowed the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and the congressman chose not to deny the possibility that he could support a Democrat other than Obama going into 2012. MORE...

David Kurtz on Obama's "Seminal Moment"

David Kurtz (TPM):

What we saw and what I think we'll see borne out by subsequent events is Obama revealing in a very public way the choice he has made between the two political personas he has simultaneously inhabited throughout his candidacy and his presidency. He has tried to be both pragmatist and progressive savior. And even when he stopped trying to be the savior after he was elected, he was at a certain level content to let supporters continue to project that persona on to him.

Today, he very clearly and loudly said: that savior persona is not me. I am the pragmatist. And you know what, I don't have a whole lot of patience for the idealists. I share their ideals, but I don't share their approach and I'm not going to get bogged down in recriminations over not living up to some abstract ideal.

I don't think this a change in the fundamental truth of who he is or of what his politics are, but with today's press conference the pretense that he might yet be someone else was finally dropped. Not only was he announcing that this is who I am, but he was also effectively declaring, I am not that other guy. (You can watch the key part of the presser here.) MORE...

Joe Bageant on WikiLeaks and "AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM?"

Joe Bageant:

Come on now, is it a revelation that Karzai and his entire government is a nest of fraudulent double-crossing thieves? Or that the US is duplicitous? Or that Angela Merkel is dull? The main revelation in the WikiLeaks affair was the U.S. government's response -- which was to bring US freedom of speech policy firmly in line with China's. Millions of us in cyber ghettoes saw it coming, but our alarm warnings were shouted inside a cyberspace vacuum bell jar.

Bear in mind that I am writing this from outside the US borders and media environment, where people watch the WikiLeaks story unfold more in amusement than anything else.

The WikiLeaks affair is surely seismic to those whose asses ride on the elite diplomatic intrigues. But in the big picture it will not change the way the top lizards in global politics, money and war have done business since the feudal age -- which is to say with arrogant disregard for the rest of us. MORE...

"Obama tax deal: 'Irresponsible,' 'unfair,' say Inslee, McDermott"

Joel Connelly (seattlepi.com):

Two veteran Seattle-area Congressmen, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., have signed a letter that denounces President Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans as "fiscally irresponsible" and "grossly unfair."

The letter is being circulated by Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, as an indication that House Democrats will not go along with the deal. It gives advice and a warning to the Democratic president: "He should not back down. Nor should we."

Inslee, seen as a possible Democratic candidate for governor in 2012, singled out a provision that would extend Bush-era tax cuts to those making more than $250,000 a year. He described Republicans as "hostage takers" holding up Congress' business on behalf of high-income earners.

"Tax cut bonuses for millionaires and billionaires will greatly expand the deficit, undermines the values of working and middle class families, and continues the failed Bush economic policy," said the 1st District congressman.

McDermott, who represents most of Seattle in Congress, described the tax cut deal as Obama's "Gettysburg." MORE...